How to Grow a Church - Part 1

I recently stumbled upon this article (Structuring to Grow, Not Plateau) from Baptist Press by Rick Warren (famous Christian author and pastor of Saddleback Church). In it he shares 10 musts the church should focus on in order to grow.

Although the article is a couple of years old, I'm wondering if there can be anything learned from it.

Here are the first 5 musts:

1. You must develop an unshakable conviction about growth.

First and foremost, you need to settle on the idea that God wants His church to grow. And He doesn’t want it to stop growing!

You don’t ever need to apologize for wanting your church to grow. God wants His church to grow; it’s His will and His command. The reason churches must grow is because people are going to hell without Jesus Christ. As long as there is one person within driving distance of your church who does not know Jesus Christ, you must keep growing.

Can't argue much with that one. I, too, believe that God wants His church to grow. I think God will use many different ways to grow His church and many different styles of churches (mega, small, house, contempory, traditional, mainstream, etc).

2. You must change the primary role of the pastor from minister to leader.

You can grow a church to 300 with pastoral skills or ministry skills, but growing beyond 300 will require leadership skills. As a leader, you must learn to communicate your vision in very personal and practical ways. You also must learn to motivate your church through your messages, and understand that it’s easier to motivate a group than it is to motivate individuals.

A leader also equips others for ministry. Otherwise, you’ll burn out and the church won’t grow. An expanding ministry also demands you learn how to raise money. Those who write the agenda must underwrite the agenda, and you must learn to manage your time. Effective leaders know where their time goes.

Not too sure on this one. I think a pastor should remain a pastor. I don't think the leading of the church should be done by one main person. I think a good, well-rounded group of representatives from the congregation can lead the church.

3. You must organize around the gifts of your people.

The team God gives you will show you how to structure. Organizing around the gifts of your people will allow the church to focus on ministry, not maintenance. A gifts-based ministry encourages teamwork. It also makes better use of the talent around you (and why do you think God brought this talent into your church?).

Building your structure on the gifts and talents within the church promotes creativity and allows for spontaneous growth. Ministries bubble up, rather than waiting on a board meeting to dissect every possibility. And decision-making becomes more efficient while the structure grows more stable.

I so agree that a church should organize around the gifts and talents of the people in it. How else do the people feel part of the church if they don't get to use their gifts. I, also think that the church should also assist in the developing of gifts.

4. You must budget according to your purposes and priorities.

Obviously the budget of the church shows the priorities and the direction of the church. I’d suggest you take the budget items and ask of each item, “Which purpose does this fit under?” This will help your people visualize what you’re trying to do, and what you’re doing with God’s money.

I think this is a very good thing to do. Always make sure the budget aligns with the vision and direction of the church.

5. You must add staff on purpose.

Build your staff by first adding generalists and then specialists. First, you want to add people who can do lots of things because you’re only going to have one. Then as you go down the road, you can add more and more specialists.

When do you want to add staff? As soon as you can ... immediately, if at all possible. You want to build as many volunteers as quickly as you can and also add staff as quickly as you can. Anytime you add a staff member, that’s a faith step and allows the church to grow to the next level.

I think this one is really hard for me. I lean more towards lay leadership and developing lay leadership and volunteers than having lots of paid people. I'm not sure that adding staff is a faith step - asking someone to commit without pay (volunteer) is a tad more of a risk that we need to rely on God for.

Just some of my thoughts on this - I'll comment on the last 5 musts a little later. (How To Grow A Church - Part 2)

Feel free to share your thoughts too.

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